Last week, a massive container ship wedged itself between both banks of the Suez Canal in Egypt, completely blocking the waterway and affecting 10% of the world¡¯s trade traffic. I could not keep silent about the matter, having been to the canal several times, as I spent two years beginning in 1979 in Cairo studying Arabic during my training stage at the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
It was indeed a perfect diplomatic dilemma: The container ship was a Japanese-owned, Taiwanese-operated, German-managed, Panamanian-flagged and Indian-manned behemoth of a vessel that now finds itself under Egyptian jurisdiction. I cannot think of any other maritime crises more complicated and multi-faceted than this one.
With that said, international reactions to this tragic event were ambivalent at best, if not chaotic. Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato, for example, said ¡°The incident¡¯s possible impact on Japan is limited with no specific influence on the nation¡¯s stable energy supply. Still, we must keep an eye on the prices in the market.¡±
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